NATO's Ordinary Future.

• Author: Abrahamson, James L.

NATO's Ordinary Future

by Randal D. Kaplan

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/natos-ordinary-future-robert-d-kaplan

In this insightful essay, Robert D. Kaplan, national correspondent for The Atlantic and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, acknowledges NATO's many shortcomings but nevertheless judges it helpful to the U.S. in organizing Europe's defense vis-a-vis Russia and allowing America to "focus on the Middle East and Asia. NATO is not great, but for the time being it is good enough."

NATO's shortcomings emerged clearly when its European members, acting alone, failed to overcome Serbia in response to the crisis in Kosovo, and their inability to act to the situation in Libya without extensive U.S. support proved "devastating for the alliance." The U.S., for example, provided 80% of the intervention's gasoline and "ran the logistical end of the conflict;" only eight NATO members allowed their war planes to drop bombs; and most of the conflict's "individual operation orders carried an American address."

One U.S. general told Kaplan "Europe is dead militarily." Its "military budgets are plummeting;" Europeans take little pride in their armed forces; and with a few exceptions their publics regard members of their armed forces as "civil servants in funny uniforms" suitable for participating in "humanitarian relief exercises." Observers might readily conclude that NATO, having lost its core Cold War mission "is finished."

Even...